The portrait
by MrsRegulusBlack123
Summary: He squinted, his expression morphing into what could only be shock mixed with surprise as they came to a stop once more. Sure enough, they had found the portrait. "...Regulus?"


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

The Black family attic was situated on the fourth and final floor of 12 Grimmauld Place. It was a big, dusty room with an unpleasant smell of closure lingering in it, the many years of disuse having left its mark strongly. The set of stairs leading up to it was unsurprisingly equally old and dusty, and every time somebody climbed a step higher, it creaked ominously.

Sirius coughed a bit as he held up his wand- the tip lighting up his dim surroundings. It wasn't much help. The room remained mainly dark, imposing shapes of objects and big shadows surrounding him.

The Black family heir frowned in distaste, making his way further into the room as the floorboards creaked beneath him.

There was only one reason he was in this place- a room he had never really stepped foot in since his childhood, when his childish curiosity had led him to explore it.

"Well, come on! We don't have all day." Molly chided, making a little half circle around him to get a better look at the old attic. She murmured something about the state of the room, holding her own wand up as she started pulling open drawers and rummaging through them like they weren't somebody else's stuff. He didn't particularly care. Everything in this wretched house could just burn for all he cared. He hated it.

"Be careful for any dark artifacts." He reminded the woman rather moodily, moving over to the other side of the room so he could aid her in her search.

It was a tiresome and painfully time-consuming process. Pulling the sheets (if there were any) off the furniture, checking for unexpected curses, banishing any pests they found crawling around -more than once Molly Weasley had complained about that last bit- only to spend a few minutes rummaging through old stuff in the hopes of finding any keys for all the locked doors and cupboards downstairs. So far they hadn't turned up with much.

"Oh for Merlin's sake...!" Having just pulled open an old armoire a bit too hastily, Molly quickly stunned the chizpurfle that fell out of it. "I have never seen so many pests in one house! This is simply ridiculous!"

"Well, it has been empty for over a decade with only a crazy house elf to look after it, Molly." Sirius amended, "It's no real surprise."

She just mumbled some more as she returned to her duties. They went through another ten or fifteen objects, finding a cursed amulet and the detestable singing teapot Walburga Black had once upon a time received as a Christmas present from her brother, Cygnus. It took three silencing charms to shut it up when it got started, and Sirius threw it back into the depths of the attic hoping to never see it again.

There was a dull _thump _somewhere behind him, signaling the teapot had landed.

"Would it be that inconvenient not to throw things around?" An unimpressed drawl that most certainly didn't belong to Molly Weasley caused both of their movements to come to an abrupt halt as they spun around, wands at the ready. "That teapot almost hit me, and regrettable as it is, I am not exactly in the state to move to the side and evade it."

Sirius squinted, but he was unable to make out much of anything.

"Who's there?!" He demanded.

"Just an old portrait." They followed the voice, Sirius going first, Molly trailing behind. It was so familiar- Sirius knew that voice, recognized it even- if only he could peg a name to it, he thought to himself. It could very well be a portrait of some forefather of his, taken down for whatever reason his mother had seen fit at the time.

"I've got to say, for burglars you aren't very stealthy."

"We are not-"

He squinted, his expression morphing into what could only be shock mixed with surprise as they came to a stop once more. Sure enough, they had found the portrait.

"...Regulus?" It was almost surprising how long it had taken him to figure that out, the familiar voice of his little brother had not changed one bit. He hastily moved over to pull off the sheet that had been half-draped on the portrait.

"How do you-" The boy depicted on the painting looked surprised, his mouth opening just a tiny bit as he blinked. He quickly composed himself though, schooling his features back into a calmer expression. "Sirius?"

There was no mistaking it now, Sirius thought as he shone his wand light on the old portrait. It wasn't as old as the other paintings hung up around the house, but it was certainly more than a decade old...

The object of the painting- a boy of merely 18 years- was sitting at a dark wooden desk, a dull green and silver tapestry blurring out in the background. There was a quill, and an ink bottle as well as a parchment that looked like it had never been used in its entire life lying before him. A half empty glass of water stood next to it.

Regulus himself looked just like the last time he had seen him, if not somewhat more alive. There were no dark circles under his gray eyes and he didn't look dead on his feet. Either the painter had been generous, or the portrait had been made before those changes happened.

He was dressed in an emerald green robe, expensive and especially fitted for him. He had seen his brother wear it once, at a social event years ago... it suited him. In contrast to Sirius' longer and somewhat messy hair, Regulus' looked like he had just spend hours making it neat and proper. He looked every bit the Slytherin pureblood their parents had always wanted both of their sons to be.

Any feelings of nostalgia dissipated, and the eldest Black turned around to leave the room.

"Come on, Molly, I recon we've got enough to go by for now."

* * *

Try as he might, Sirius just couldn't get the portrait out of his head. Cleaning and disinfecting the house might've kept the thoughts at bay during the daytime, but well after dinnertime, after the kids had all gone to bed and there was no Harry, Molly, Remus or Arthur to chat with, his mind kept wandering back to that dusty attic.

As he lied in his old bedroom every night, he kept thinking of the portrait, all the silver and green, and his baby brother standing there, barely an adult. That in turn made him think of less pleasant things, reminded him of the night when he got the news of his brother's death, James giving him an apologetic look as he told him. A gravestone for someone too young.

He then thought of that other night too, some weeks before the last. A night he had come to regret many time after. It had been a dark night with no moon on which Regulus had come to his house- he never did hear him out, threatened to curse him instead, said he'd call the aurors on him.

That was the last time he ever saw his brother.

Until that morning. Even though the one in the attic was just a portrait, an echo of his brother... he wanted to know. He wanted answers to his questions.

It just got progressively worse when Harry and his friends left for Hogwarts, happy as he was for him not ending up having his wand snapped, Sirius couldn't admit his house got awfully quiet and lonely after their departure.

Molly and Arthur weren't there full time, and though Remus tried to spend as much time as he could in Grimmauld Place, he couldn't be there 24/7. That left only Sirius cooped up in that awful house, unable to ever leave it.

It was with a great deal of bargaining with himself, that upon one night he decided to just drop all pretenses and _go_. If he was left alone with his thoughts for much longer, he might finally really go crazy... or more crazy than he already was at least.

Molly and Arthur were at their house. It was full moon so Remus couldn't be around either. The rest of the Order members were off doing their own thing- probably sleeping considering the late hour.

There was nothing else to do, and nobody had to know.

So taking his wand, Sirius Black wandered up the stairs he knew would lead him to where he wanted to be. He passed Kreacher on his way there, told the house elf to get lost before moving on.

The door opened with a familiar creak, allowing some light into the dark attic. It looked just like they had left it last time. Losing no time on looking for keys that turned out to be useless anyway, Sirius made a beelines for where he knew the portrait was.

Regulus was still sitting at his desk, but this time around he had found a candle somewhere and lit it, throwing some light on whatever he was writing on his piece of parchment.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming back." He commented, putting his quill down and looking up to meet his brother's gaze. There was a silence before- "You look old."

Sirius scrunched up his nose.

"You haven't changed a bit."

"Well, I'm a portrait." _and dead_. That was just left lingering in the air.

It was a rather uncomfortable silence, and Sirius wasn't sure what to say. After all, what does one say to the portrait of his estranged brother, several years after said brother's death? They had never really been on good terms anyway, especially after the sorting.

He was no longer sure why he had thought this was a good idea.

"Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to actually say something?"

"I didn't know you had a portrait made of you..." Sirius said the first thing that came into mind- he didn't feel like touching the other subjects quite yet. "I thought they didn't do that until later."

"Ah, well... mother said I should get one- even if she was the one to take me down in the end. Can't say I blame her... must be hard, being confronted by the painting of your son every day after his death."

Sirius just nodded. This conversation really wasn't going as he had expected it to- not that he had really known what to expect either way... but this was just extremely awkward.

He was just considering leaving again, when Regulus spoke up once more.

"What year is it?"

"What?"

"I asked, what year is it?"

"Oh... it's 1995" Regulus whistled at that.

"Nearly sixteen years then..."

"Yeah."

* * *

The brothers' next conversation took place a couple of weeks after the last.

After Sirius's admittedly late breakfast, he'd unthinkingly wandered around for a while- ending up in the attic somewhere around 3 or 4. There was no particular need to get up early, even if he sometimes wished there was, and his days consisted of mainly lazing around and doing nothing of interest. There was a limit to how many books one could read, or how many times they could clean a surface before it just became old, boring and plain dull.

Everything about this place was depressing.

"So..." The youngest Black had spoken up at some point, "How come you're back here anyway? I thought you were planning on never coming back when you stepped out on the rest of us." Both of them were avoiding the real questions. That much had become obvious pretty soon.

"Oh believe me," Sirius sneered in reply, "It was my last option."

"There's hardly any need to get hostile, Sirius. I was just inquiring."

With that Regulus returned to the book he had at some point earlier produced from one of his desk's drawers. Sirius didn't know much about paintings, but he was fairly certain that its inhabitants could only handle the things that already existed in the painting, and thus, within the mind frame of the painter at the moment it had been painted and charmed.

It sounded like a pretty boring life.

"Do you just sit there all day...?" He finally asked.

"It's not like I can leave, is it? There is no twin painting to go to, and neither did I ever take the time to enchant my portrait to make interaction with other paintings possible."

Sirius made a noise of understanding. It was a more advanced piece of magic- he himself didn't know how to do it, but he wouldn't have been surprised if Regulus had been in the possession of that sort of knowledge- charms had always been his forte.

"But really, brother. What _are_ you doing here, 20 years after you left? How did the wards even let you in?"

"Mother never legally disowned me... even after she burnt me off that blasted tapestry. This is all mine now." He made a gesture, indicating that it was the house he was talking about. Along with everything else in it.

"Ah, of course. She did live with the hope that you might have a change of heart one day." Sirius snorted, because both of them knew exactly how unlikely _that _was. The youngest Black heaved a sigh. "She's truly not that bad, Sirius. If you'd just-"

"Yeah, tell that to the screeching portrait of hers downstairs."

The Slytherin looked dismayed but not surprised at having been interrupted. It was something their mother had always told him off for as well.

"I did hear something about that. What did you do to get her that worked up? Bring the Potters and their progeny over just to spite her?"

Despite the words having been said in a light, friendly sort of way, no ill-intent whatsoever- it was quickly obvious that that had not been a good thing to say. Sirius clenched his fists, looking away from his brother and it felt like the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped 10 degrees. Regulus quickly realized he'd said something wrong too, because he stopped chuckling and sobered up.

"Oh... I'm sorry." Perhaps adding the tentative "what happened?" after that, had not been the best of ideas.

"You bloody _know _what happened!" Sirius snapped at the boy in the portrait- his eyes flashing. "You were one of them, Regulus." He spat the words with venom and the younger Black twitched a bit at that, lips turning downwards.

The tension in the room was palpable now- and both of them knew they'd crossed the line they'd been tiptoeing around. They might as well drop all pretenses of a civil past record now.

"You were a bloody idiot, you know that right?" Sirius grit out at last, sounding more defeated than he was irritated.

"I only did what I judged was right at the time."

"Right?! He's a homicidal maniac! He has killed so many people, Reg, good people, innocent people!" Sirius fumed. "How could joining the ranks of someone like that, ever seem like a _good idea_?!"

"I never said it was a good idea."

"And before you even start with your pureblood supremacy bull- wait, what?"

"You heard me." The younger Black said. "Being in the front lines during raids did set me thinking. Doubting, you might say."

"You were scared." It was a statement, not a question.

"I was. But I was already in too deep when I realized. That war, though I did not go against the general idea of the Dark Lord's ideals, was never what I wanted."

"No one did."

There was a nod, and after a few moments of silence, there was a crash downstairs and the screams of Walburga Black filled the house. Even muffled, Sirius could make out the gist of what she was saying. He got up to leave, there was a meeting due.

"Sirius." The portrait of Regulus called out just as he was about to walk away, "What _did_ happen to the war?"

"That's a long story."

"Then just tell me... the Dark Lord, is he dead?" Sirius paused, looking at the portrait and pursing his lips. Should he really be doing this? Talking to his long-dead, Death Eater brother? He supposed that one bit of information wasn't likely to bring them down.

"He was gone for a couple of years... but he's back now."

The last thing he saw before turning his back and leaving the room completely, wasn't the expression of a Death Eater having just discovered his Master had returned. It was the expression of someone who would've rather Voldemort stay gone. Somebody who had seen the horrors of war.

* * *

"So... how did you die?" Over the months, talking to Regulus seemed to have become one of Sirius's main pastimes. He would admit that it wasn't all that bad, his brother's dry, sarcastic humor wasn't all that unpleasant to listen to, and... he was actually _decent company_. He was also always around, which was more than what could be said about anybody else.

Harry and his friends had returned to Hogwarts some weeks ago too, so the house was quiet once more. Nobody knew about the portrait of Regulus, not even Kreacher, who would've surely wept at the news that there remained something of his favourite Master in the house. He would've cried and it seemed very possible that he might've tried to hog the painting off to god knows where in the hope that Sirius wouldn't try to get rid of it. Regulus had inquired about Kreacher's well being as well, and once again, Sirius hadn't been able to understand how his brother could not only stand that cranky old house elf, but actually feel affection towards it.

He chucked it up to his brother just being odd.

"I don't share any memories of what happened after I was painted." Regulus simply shrugged. "I just left one day, never came back. Poor Kreacher was a mess. Before I was moved up here I heard that my body was never recovered."

Sirius nodded.

"They say you tried to back out, and they killed you for it."

"Well... I _was _planning something. Can't tell you what though, other than it was likely dangerous and unlikely that I'd return."

* * *

If someone had told Sirius's teenage self that he would be sitting in front of Regulus's portrait several years in the future, having light conversations and cracking jokes like houses and family disagreements didn't matter- he'd have openly declared them delusional and in dire need of a trip to St. Mungo's hospital for magical maladies. They had some rough years behind their backs, but as they sat opposite of each other, a butterbeer in Sirius's hand, it didn't seem to matter.

The topics shifted, and Sirius found himself opening up to Regulus once more- telling him things he never thought he'd talk to his brother about. His pureblood, Slytherin brother. The one who even after all those years took pride in his family name. It didn't seem like such a bad characteristic anymore- he was a bit stuffy, a bit proud... but... he wasn't evil. Sirius realized that despite all his crappy choices he probably never had been.

"He's great at quidditch. A seeker, just like you were back when we were at Hogwarts. You should've seen him fly... it was like seeing James again for a moment there... he's got Lily's eyes, you know." Sirius had told him one night, a smile on his lips as he took a sip of his butterbeer.

* * *

"What do you _mean_, that crook has been taking the silverware?!" Regulus sounded completely affronted by the very thought. "Don't let him do that! Tell this Mundungus fellow to put it back exactly where he found it, or Merlin help me I will-"

Sirius was too busy remembering how to breathe through his laughter to hear the rest of it.

* * *

"We had this map, see, made it ourselves in fifth year." Sirius explained to a very attentive Regulus. It was just like the old days- a grin on Sirius's lips and a sparkle of mischief in Reg's.

"A map of Hogwarts?" The youngest of the two asked in wonder. "That's rather impressive. I'm guessing that would at the very least require a concealment charm and... the Homonculous charm? That's some advanced magic for fifth years- quite a feat."

"Why thank you. It wasn't easy, believe me. We slaved on it for months."

Regulus chuckled.

"That sure does explain a couple of things though."

* * *

"I only wish there were some books around here... it gets dreadfully boring when there's nobody to talk to. The parchment just replaces itself when it's full- but there's only so much one can write before getting bored."

"Well, we could... move you downstairs? I'm sure Kreacher would be absolutely delighted."

"And the Order?" Regulus questioned. "Surely they won't want a Death Eater's portrait down there while they're discussing top secret matters."

Sirius just shrugged.

"I didn't say I'd put you in the conference room. Just out in the hall to get some air."

"I'm a portrait- I don't even need to breathe." Regulus deadpanned.

"Sure, whatever."

Before anymore words could be exchanged, a loud voice came from downstairs, calling for Sirius. It sounded urgent, something about Harry, and the ministry.

"You go," Regulus said. "Sounds like your godson needs you."

Sirius nodded, grabbing his wand from his pocket and running out the door.

He never came back.

* * *

_As he fell through the veil, he felt arms pull him through. Their grips were gentle but unwavering._

_For a moment he thought he saw their faces, Lily and James standing beside him, holding onto his arm and smiling warmly. They were wearing their Hogwarts robes, red and gold and not looking a day older than 17. Regulus was there too, holding his other arm. It was not the painting Regulus, and neither was it the haunted, afraid, exhausted teenager he'd seen him last as- this Regulus was young. Back during their childhood, when everything was simple and happy. He was wearing his green dress robes, a Slytherin he had been since then. He found that, for once, he didn't care at all._

_They were all so young, and they were all smiling. He felt himself smile back through his tears as he was engulfed in a hug._

* * *

It was years later that the portrait of Regulus Black received its next visit.

Harry and Ginny Potter had been going through all of the things in the ancestral house of the Blacks with Kreacher, trying to find anything they might still need, and sort through all of the things that had to be thrown away. It was at some point during that long, laborious task, that they had stumbled across the dusty old attic.

The door had been left open, nobody having been in the room for years.

Regulus had recognized the man the moment he set eyes on him, looking up from the book in front of him. He'd been reading that same old thing for a very long time.

"You really _do_ look like Potter." He had said, "except for your eyes..."

The couple had been surprised to find a portrait there, much less a civil one. Those weren't very frequent in the Noble and Most Ancient House Of Black.

Kreacher had unsurprisingly been ecstatic when he found out, crying and blubbering all over the place, hugging the portrait frame as if he had just found a national treasure. He cleaned it religiously every morning for the rest of his life.

The Potters took his portrait with them to their house, and that's where Regulus Arcturus Black can be found until this very day. He isn't alone anymore- just like his brother had before him, he's been adopted in the Potter family.


End file.
